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Mass Sprite Sheet Expansion Battle & NPC

#41
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The original plan of expanding sprites up to Ramah (#63) was only going to require about 5 banks to do, meaning it would have fit in the normal 4mb ROM (5 banks includes the space required by the already full character sheets as well, so using the space where the original sprites were would have ment only about 2-3 banks of free space being taken.)

The reason for going to 6mb for that plan was, filling two entire banks would without doubt cause issues with alot of patches, no matter which banks I filled. Also would have required non-continuous placement of sprite sheets, which I just didn't want to attempt to keep track of. Then there's the whole, because I COULD factor with going to 6mb.
In short, it wasn't absolutly required to go to 6mb with the original plan.

The new plan, if every sheet was expanded to full PC size, will take from 41/0000 to 50/0000. That is if every single sprite sheet is moved out of normal hiRom and into the new area AND if every single sheet is expanded AND including the data for all the expanded tables/code (currently code is allocated from 41/0000 - 41/0A00).
Some of them, there is no rational reason to expand (the flowers, Umaro's skull totem, the diving helmet) and some I'm not even sure how to expand or what to expand (the crain arms that attack the airship, some stuff from Kefka's tower/mtek research facility). So that space estimate above should be a "max" estimate.

To answer the question, yes it should all fit, with room to spare in the extended area, more free space in normal hiROM, and some blank space in C2. That being said, I'm pretty sure there is no way to cram it all into a 4mb ROM at this point (even if I only did stuff that made sense).

As much as I hate to do it, gotta go back to plan A.

That is, enabling the basic NPCs to be battle ready, period. Why?

Well, expanding the battle sprite pointers to the full length of the map pointers, expanding that many sprite sheets, and adding new sprites (while I could probably pull it off in a week or two of grinding based on what I was testing last) would be such a complicated patch it would be worthless as a patch, and next to impossible to use generally speaking. If I had the desire to make my own full game hack, it would be worth doing all this, but I don't.

So, plan A. Will have a patch with combat/party ready basic NPC's. Should even be able to pull this off with breaking anything and it would be useable. Unless I get tied up elsewhere, shouldn't take to long either. Just have to scale it down and put it all together. Already had most of the kinks worked out on this part except for portraits and that shouldn't be to difficult to make work.


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#42
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It lives... again...

Yeah, a touch over dramatic for something so simple, (still a classic line from the old PC dos game "Blood", fun stuff. Course any game that has a zippo lighter and a can of hairspray for a blow torch as a weapon deserves recognition.)

To the point! Yes, I'm back to this. Believe it or not I already fixed it too! Well, not finished by any meams but I got the patch working as it should have when I had to quit last time. I will update the first post and download link when I get home from work in about 12 hours or so. Just to be clear at the current stage it works, has several sheets expanded already (none current, just what I had installed during round one.) It has not been clean tested though, while it shouldn't have any downsides or noticable issues I'm not 100% sure exactly where I left it. I'm pretty sure I didn't repoint any NPC map sprites and I know I didn't change any events to use full sheets so technically it could be used to put a few of the added sprites in battle.

Since the core code seems to be working now, means I get to start off with adding sorting and merging sprite sheets.

Step one: merge in all the new full vanilla sprites floating around to fill out their lacking vanilla counter parts and update the list.

Step two: Fine tune the idea of adding new sheets. Since I'm a fool and didn't record the reasoning behind not wanting to go full bore-all in-balls first expansion (other than being to difficult to use? WTF does that even mean? Guess I'll find out eventually).

Just to be clear, the biggest reason behind the stopping of this project was time. I ran out of it. To much to do, days not long enough, (insert what ever other excuse you'd believe here), etc. Regardless, signs are good, just started and already have it fixed. So off we go.

I would also like to request two things if someone is interested.

1st. I would really dig it if someone a little less rusty in events could see about adjusting the events/areas that have Figaro guards on chocobos to use the normal Figaro sprite sheet (sheet number 59 decimal) instead of the riding sprite on #64. Or at least see why it can't be done. The point is to free up sprite #64 for something entirely new. As I said, I'll update the download soon as able, if someone wants to do it sooner than that: patch rom, Open hex editor, change 3F/F580 from EF to F2 and it should work fine. Readme should have details on what/how to patch.

2nd request? Completed vanilla sprites of course. Although that needs to wait until I get the list up to date on what I have and what is needed/desired.

Beyond that, we'll see where it goes. Have questions, read the thread or ask. I tried to put all the info and status of on this thread as it came up (for the very reason I figured I'd need to go back and read it to refresh my own memory.)

On an added side note, and a small redemtion for myself, a few more minetes of looking and I found what caused the borking of the last version. I had added an extra address to the first pointer table to add in a new sprite, which moved all following list down 3 bytes. I made all the pointer adjustmemts in my code to account for it but forgot the palette pointer buried in Egger's expanded palette patch asm. (Since I used a compiler to edit and add his code, I didn't have it all wrote out in my spreadsheet for easy viewing, hence forgot to adjust the extra added bytes for that pointer list). SO, yes that explains the break and means that one adjustment to the core code should be all that was busted. Just to clarify.


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  • Tenkarider (12-08-2015)

#43
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speaking of full Vanilla sprites:
As you may know I have completed new versions of
Rachel, Vargas, Katarin, and now Maria
I did my best to match them to the style of original playable characters but they utilize as much of their original color palettes as possible. (Rachel is a peculiar exception switching from palette 0 to palette 4 which actually improved the quality. other than the lack of blonde hair palette 4 could easily trick a non spriter player into thinking its palette 0)
In addition to this I have made some cosmetic adjustments to my Daryl sprite as well as the Gestahl i found with tlp in your old patch.

Vargas and Katerin also utilize different palettes but compare them to the default and youll probably come to the same conclusion I did which was that they were a bit sloppy with some of the npcs that had much more potential...

I am almost finished with the Old Woman sprite, (must drop one more color from her palette to make 12)

i am aware that some of these characters had competed sprites before, however, these versions were specifically done utilizing the new freedom granted by the palette patch.

My next planned project is the little boy, then the figaro chancellor.
Btw didnt I see something about an extra palette?
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#44
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The theory of an "extra" palette as I recall is subject to debate. It may be there, it may not, it may be used, it might be used for funny event stuffs, it might be there yet not readable, it may even be nothing more than a figment of everyone's collective imagination. I don't remember (imagine that, me not remembering) ever finding a 100% answer on that one.

As for new/adjusted sprites and alternate palettes, I've got a couple converted to hex and filed, haven't viewed in battle yet. Going to have to do some tweaking on my laptop monitor before I can even think of so much as a proper comment on any sort of improvement. (The way its adjusted now even the vanilla sprites are hardly recognizable in editors.) Might get them in game and in battle for a screenshot and see how the new vs old compare. Matter of fact, should be able to do a side by side in battle pretty easy.

On another note, the chancelor is one of those that, with some event tweaking, should be able to free up a sprite number for a whole new addition (should be able to use a full #34 sprite to completely replace the purpose of the #68 sprite) so yeah looking forward to seeing that. As for what those limited free slot additions will be, waiting to cross that bridge when it comes. All I know for sure is I want to add the Cat.


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#45
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Cat?

also In that case I'll make the chancellor my next project. shouldnt be too hard.

now on yet another side note, If you bring a character who uses palette 2 (terras palette chancellor and daryl uses it too) to the scene in Zozo where u wake Terra up, when the magicite flashes any chatacter with that palette will flash with it [in my case Daryl who swapped w Setzer]) smh... I mean I get why it happens, in a normal game Terra is the only pc with palette 2 but still...

the only other thing, the palette 5 the moogle palette has a LOT of potential if you change the duped white and bluegrey to normal human skin. it would require the spriter to adjust the 2 pc sprites that originally use it tho. but ultros and chupon are unaffected by the skin change

the only notable difference is that mog and umaro wont turn colors for berserk, poison, zombie
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#46
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(12-08-2015, 12:11 PM)catone Wrote: The theory of an "extra" palette as I recall is subject to debate.

Not really a debate considering the palette index in the NPC data is on 3 bits, unless you consider reformatting the whole data (easy part) and change the relevant map/npc loading code and palette swapping event command. I don't know how battle palettes are handled though, never bothered to look up that in bank $C1.
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#47
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I've seen it, read it, poked it with a stick, moved it around and made it longer.

Still couldn't tell you a single thing about it though. Seem to think every time I've followed a lead on a free palette, it always turned up a dead end. That being said, if a standard palette can be sorted and reordered, why not two palettes sorted and reordered into one 12 color palette?

Way beyond my ability though.


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#48
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(12-08-2015, 06:59 PM)catone Wrote: if a standard palette can be sorted and reordered, why not two palettes sorted and reordered into one 12 color palette?

I didn't know this was done somewhere in the code already. You'll need also 24 RAM bytes per new palettes. The data reformatting is almost a better option in this case.
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#49
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Not done in normal code, Eggers done it. Goes through A palette, sorts/reorders, saves in sram.

I believe it intercepts the loading process and changes the loading order into vram, the saving is just for speed.

Just have to wonder why the same concept couldn't be adapted to load from two seperate instead of one.


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(12-08-2015, 07:48 PM)catone Wrote: Just have to wonder why the same concept couldn't be adapted to load from two seperate instead of one.

It's possible, but the issue is "how to have more working palettes for NPCs and characters" rather than "how to create a new palette". Because regardless on how you do it, you still add a new palette index.
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